The Lovely Bones #2 (spoilers)

I finished the book this week, and to be honest the end was disappointing and I feel that the whole book dragged on for too long in general. We get it, Susie died and she wants to still be alive, she’s dragging her whole family down. Then the book randomly skips like 20 years ahead and gives us the setting for a bunch of events sloppily tied up. Ug. This ending was distasteful to say the least. Although the end was really bad, the book in a whole was great! I loved all of the detail and nuances about the in-between world as well as the presence of spirits.

Nobody believed Ruth or Buckley when they proposed the possibility of the after life. It was thrown aside because it was ridiculous, yet the family believed in Heaven. Aren’t these ideas one in the same? What makes something believable? This reminds me of skepticism, doubting everything in order to see both sides of things. How can Susie’s family believe in Heaven and not the after life, or the not heaven? It seems like positive improvable things are more believable than negative improvable things. Perhaps this is because our society wishes to only see the brighter side of every situation, to comfort themselves.

This belief of questioning everything makes religion weak at the knees since it questions both good and bad myths and beliefs. To those who question, finding the answer, if there is one, is more important than finding comfort in your life and spirituality. For those who are religious, the idea of everything being taken care of, putting the blame in a higher being’s hands takes away the pressures of life simply because it forces you to do good. Or at least I think that. From a spiritual point of view, having rewards for your good deeds and repercussions for your bad ones encourages people to really think about what they are going to do because it matters where they will go after death.

Susie’s family uses this idea of a “better place” as a crutch to help them heal from the tragic death that has stricken them. I don’t even think they truly believe it, I think they use the idea as a way to not worry about things they can’t control. Susie’s mother even ran away from the fact that things were getting worse, creating a new identity for herself and erasing her firstborn daughter completely. The characters, even Susie seem to believe it is better to believe in something untrue, than accept the truth. I think its better to accept the truth because living a lie is like living with your brain shut off to all of the other options that exist.

The lovely Bones

            I’m just starting this book and its really interesting so far, yet the whole plot line has been given away. Within the first couple of chapters or so Susie is raped and killed. It’s very interesting that most of the book goes in depth about the subsequent sequence of events that unravel after this horrific event, not only trying to catch George Harvey, but also what happens to her family friends and just the people in her town. She basically haunts her family’s lives to make sure her murderer is caught and that they will never forget her. Susie refuses to go forward or to let anyone else help her.

            It’s interesting that Susie won’t allow her family to heal or figure things out, yet she is just trying to be helpful. But whom does she really want to help more her family or herself? Susie is torturing her father, splitting up her parents marriage, killing her siblings childhoods all so she can be remembered, all so she doesn’t have to accept what has happened. We all do this though sometimes, we all try to help other people, intervene on their lives desperately hoping to escape the problems we are facing. I don’t believe you can ever truly run away from a problem though because the more space there is between you and the resolution the more the problem gnaws at you any time you are alone.

            So what is really the greater good? Because sometimes people do things to try to help others, they commit acts of selflessness or interference in order to escape a pressing issue in their personal lives, or to make themselves look better. Some politicians and rich socialites hire people to give parts of their wealth to good causes. Is this really good? Giving money blindly to some company, or trying to help your father catch the person who raped you, those things are good, but are they the greater good.  Is it better to help more people and ignore yourself, or just yourself? How can you really help anyone else if you don’t have yourself figured out anyway though.

Juno: The Shooting Script (a few days late because blogspot wasn't working)

            So I read two books this week since they were both screenplays so they were sorta short. However, the one I would like to focus on is Juno: The Shooting Script. I also read A Streetcar Named Desire, but I didn’t have as much of a connection with the characters as I did with Juno. Diablo Cody really took a look at the average family, and completely rearranged everything about it. I think most people have seen or at least heard of Juno. Basically, it is about a girl who gets pregnant and all of the adventures and misfortunes that unfold because of this.

            The whole screenplay talks about finding yourself, and finding people who can accept you. It sounds really cheesy, but it’s not at all, very quirky and well written. One line that really stayed with me was, “I never realize how much I like being home unless I’ve been somewhere really different for a while.” It’s almost like Juno needs some reassurance that she has a good life, that even though things can get awkward or bumpy she will always have a place to go home. Every “average” family has the basis of a home, it’s the first step in our society, if you want a family you need a home.  But what is home anyway? In Juno, home is her family and friends.

            Home is not a house, a bed, a tent, a car, home is a environment you choose to immerse yourself in. I think home is the place where you are not afraid to make mistakes because you know you can deal with the consequences of your decisions.  Juno realized this after experiencing the world through a different perspective. She got pregnant and suddenly the world saw her as “the cautionary whale”, everything changed, except for Juno.  One stupid mistake cost her her reputation, but it also created a new life for both her and Vanessa. After truly witnessing the ugliness and raw beauty of her newfound identity as the pregnant girl, she became a better version of herself.

            We are constantly changing, evolving, maturing and making mistakes, but does this mean our homes change as well? Just because we are shedding an old personality and trying on a new one, does this mean those who love us, the things that we love all change as well? From Diablo’s perspective no. And I agree with this because no matter what new parts of ourselves we choose to unveil or hide away we will have our core beliefs, which is part of our home.

Scar tissue # 7 (Last one and spoilers!)

 

             Sometimes in life the end doesn’t feel like the end. It feels like the middle, where you want a little bit more time to have fun and learn and soak up everything around you. I’m not JUST talking about the end of someone’s life; I’m talking about the end of anything and everything. With Scar Tissue, the last page doesn’t feel like the final part of the book. It ends with such mystery, a cliffhanger because Anthony Kiedis is still alive, he is still technically adding to that book, expanding his story. And I don’t want to stop reading and being informed about his life. The way he wrote made me feel like someone was just telling me a story, almost as if I was one of the characters from Forest Gump sitting on a bench listening to a stranger’s whole life, and I LOVED it.

            It’s funny because before I read the book I had preconceived notions about what the book was going to be like; just all drugs, rock, and sex all the time. However, I was literally judging the book by it’s cover. Having finished the whole thing I plan to reread it to soak in the new ideas that have formed about Anthony, and my perception of people in general. Before the book even started there was an ending. My previous ideas came to a complete halt and made a 360, whipping around what I thought about the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s. I liked their music, and I thought they were pretty good, but I never understood what they were all about, I never really connected with their art. What’s interesting is that this ending, like most leads into a new beginning. So really, if you think about it, there is not ending, there is just a start to a new story. I know this has been talked about a bunch of times, but before reading this book I thought there was only one version to a story, there was one end, and one beginning. Since the author did not conform to the usual chronological lay out of writing, I realized that life is sort of like a web.

            Every idea and experience we have is connected to a focal point, in which new beginnings and endings tumble into each other creating a story of ups and downs and wrong and right turns, creating life. We never really notice when we stop becoming close with someone, but Tony examines his friendships in a very impartial way. It’s so hard to do this in life and I hope to learn from my reading about someone else’s life in order to work on my own actions.  Tony just simply notifies the reader about his friendships and the roller coaster ride through hell he drags each of them through, he admits to his wrong doings, and leaves his mistakes behind him, like being an ego maniac and after becoming clean, being crazy strict. A right for applause in itself, but on top of his willingness to admit, he let’s go, no anger or resentment follows him, it ends, leading into a new feeling or state of mind.

            Going forward in my life I hope to allow myself to recheck my behavior and identity, and let things go because I don’t think anyone is ever ready to end, only to begin.